Ranji Trophy 2022: KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal in Ranji probables – Karnataka have named 28-man Ranji Trophy probables with KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal in the squad. Manish Pandey will lead the team that will be aiming to end Ranji Trophy drought. The last time Karnataka won the Ranji Trophy was back in 2014-15 season. Since then, the team has failed to reach the final.
As Ranji Trophy is back after Covid-19 pandemic forced to cancel the 2020-21 season, Manish Pandey-led Karnataka will be aiming to break the jinx. Karnataka will have a short camp in Kolkata ahead of their first match against Uttarakhand. They will also play an intra-squad match.
Ranji Trophy 2022: Karnataka name 28-man strong Ranji probables with KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal
Amongst new faces, Aneeshwar Gautam from India U-19 squad and Aneesh KV from the Karnataka U-25 squad have been called up while all-rounder Shubhang Hegde has also been included in the squad. However, Prateek Jain, who looked off-colour in the white-ball tournaments has been dropped.
The camp begins on Wednesday and the probables will play a three-day match next week before the team is picked. The squad is expected to leave for Kolkata on January 8.
From the seniors, after Abhimanyu Mithun’s retirement from domestic cricket, Ronit More and Prasidh Krishna will lead the pace attack while Krishnappa Gowtham and Shreyas Gopal will lead the spin attack.
Ranji Trophy 2022: Karnataka name 28-man strong Ranji probables with KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal
Amongst batsmen, the onus will be on Karun Nair and Ravikumar Samarth to put up a good show after disappointing performances in the last edition. Devdutt Padikkal will be another who will be looking to better his records after a poor limited-overs campaign.
However, it is unlikely that KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal will be available for the entire tournament. KL Rahul and Mayank Agarwal are currently busy in South Africa for the test series. While Mayank is guaranteed to miss the first two Ranji matches, KL is likely to miss the entire tournament as he will be playing in ODI series against South Africa and then against West Indies at home in February.
Karnataka will face Uttarakhand in Kolkata to begin their campaign. They will also face Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Maharashtra — all former champions in Elite Group B.
Ranji Trophy 2022: Karnataka name 28-man strong Ranji probables with KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal
Probables: KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal, Manish Pandey, Karun Nair, Devdutt Padikkal, R Samarth, Nischal D, Abhinav Manohar, Siddharth KV, Aneesh KV, Aneeshwar Gautam, Vishal Onat, Gowtham K, Shreyas Gopal, J Suchith, Pravin Dubey, KC Cariappa, Ritesh Bhatkal, Shubhang Hegde, Prasidh Krishna, Ronit More, Vyshak Vijaykumar, Venkatesh M, Vidhyadhar Patil, Sharath Srinivas, Sharath BR, Kruthik Krishna and Chinmay NA.
Coach: Yere Gowda; Bowling coach: Sreenath Arvind; Fielding coach: Deepak Chougule
Ranji Trophy 2022: Karnataka name 28-man strong Ranji probables with KL Rahul, Mayank Agarwal